Those Who Walk With The Dead

Blue

Shuffling feet, girggled noises, snapping teeth, all familiar and almost reassuring to the boy covered in the insides of the dead. Survivers he used to live with had a superstition that the dead were just the living who refused to pass on when they stopped breathing. Though the boy had never believed that, he just thought that the dead were sick and no longer human. Just animals, basic needs, instinct, the herd had been fallowing the sound of a gunshot for hours, several others after the first course corrected the group.

The boy kept up with the dead in hopes of supplies, even just a pet to eat, the dead killed the owner and he'd kill anything not human. He walked like the dead, slow, straight forward, he looked like the dead, with empty eyes and blood from head to toe. A backpack was the only thing he had the others didn't, unclipped just in case he needed to ditch it quickly. He thought he was close to being mad, seeing the dead as the living, giving them each names, and personality's.

He'd morn those who became to weak to keep up, wonder about those who broke away or got mixed up in other groups. He'd snarl and growl back at those who talked to him, keep an empty look in his eyes when staring into the glassy eyes of his companion. The only thing he did that the dead didn't do is drink water, and occasionally break away to use the bathroom. His favorite corpse was the little girl in the ruined pink dress, she'd always stick close to his hip, he'd always gently herd her along where ever he went. 

He named her Lilly, he fed her bits of what he could tear off of the groups meals, he figured she'd be the one to kill him one day. A truck speeds past the group, a teenage boy around the same age as himself is sitting in the bed and holding a gun, firing at the dead. He shields Lilly with his body, looking straight into the other boys eyes, daring him to shoot. He doesn't, he taps the man next to him, frantically, but can't get his attention fast enough, the truck is over the hill and far away before the man even turns his head.

The group turns and fallows the truck, the boy checks Lilly over for injuries secretly while she wasn't paying attention. Nothing but scrapped knees and the bite mark on her ankle. When the group stopped moving after three days, the boy took Lilly aside and and put her hair into a braid. She was vacant, as always, he didn't mind though, he cleaned her face up and hands, she trys to grab his hand but he pulls away. Knowing that she would put it in her mouth and bite him.

She reminded him of his sister, she was about the same age, same completion, she had gotten sick when it was all starting to end. He kept her company for the most part, one day he had to go to the store to stalk up on more meds so his aunt had to watch her. She bit her, and they both ate his uncle, and dad. His mom was on a business trip, in a different state, she never came home.

By the time the boy came back his family was gone, he didn't have the stomach to put them down so instead he ran. He was alone for months, observing the dead and living alike, watched his town become a fortress, watched it fall. A group of scouter found him about a year after the dead rose, he wondered about what it was like on the inside of a fence, so he went with them. He met people, good people, and bad people, they were complicated, but mostly kind, he was even comfortable, for a time.

When the survivers came in contact with another group, all out warfare broke loose, he lost his best friend. The other group offered him a choice, when they won, either live with them, as a laborer, as a lesser, or leave the area, and never tell anyone what happened. He chose the ladder, he walked for days, then months, never feeling quite far enough from the carnage that once was his home.

He learned that, to become undetected by the dead, you must smell like them, and not draw attention to yourself. He was so lonely, having not spoken to anyone for over three months, he decided that if no group of the living would take him in as an equal, the dead would have to do. He used to float from herd to herd, seeing the dead as a meat sheilds at best, threats at worst, and then he found Lilly. So small, so clumsy even for a corpse, he'd amuse himself by pretending she was still alive.

He watched them more closely after he met Lilly, seeing how they'd wonder off if there was nothing to pursue. How the ones who didn't get a chance to eat anything they killed would waist away to nothing but a rotting pile of bones. How, if you look at them when they don't see you as different, you can see who they once were, and how they'd brush against you, like they were checking to see if you were still there.

After a year of being with Lilly and the ever changing members of they're group he saw them as... Lost, exactly like him. He truly fit in with them, he knew one day Lilly would bite him, and he'd tie himself to her, and nothing would change. He'd still walk with them, still eat what they ate, still be completely isolated while surrounded with equals. The group topples over tents, set up beside a road, he subtly checked to see if there was anything useful around. Accidentally setting loose a few of the dead who quickly join the group.

And onwards they march.